The Reading Room – What’s the SCOOP?
By Philip Spagnoli Stoten Founder of SCOOP
Now in a regular Friday spot, this is the Reading Room, a weekly roundup of what we’ve been reading, watching and listening to this week. You can see these updates even more regularly if you follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
It’s been a busy two weeks on the road (or in the air) and I am writing this from SFO, before flying south to LAX and then further south to Auckland and on to Melbourne. Bring on the Southern Hemisphere Summer!
My recent trip started in Texas visiting two startups set to shake up the manufacturing landscape. The first was a MaaS (Manufacturing-as-a-Service) company from Houston, called MacroFab. I was lucky enough to interview their CEO Misha Govshteyn on the SCOOPstudio at SMTA one week later. My second visit in Texas was to Essentium, an additive manufacturing startup with a blend of equipment and materials that seems ready to move 3D Printing into the industrial sphere, thanks to speed, performance and scale.
From Texas I headed to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Juan Arango at Koh Young’s new headquarters, for an in-depth spotlight on the man, the business and the industry. My last day in Atlanta was spent with the founders of DecisionLink, a company providing a SaaS solution for value management called ValueCloud. It was a week of drinking from the firehose of innovation, learning more about these immensely creative and agile companies, who are using technology to solve customer needs in a dynamic fast moving industry.
This week-long tour was my amuse-bouche, whetting my appetite for the tech-fest that is SMTAi. Don’t get me wrong, SMTAi isn’t the show that everyone rocks up to expecting major players to launch new product. Rather, it is considered a technical conference, with great keynotes, great content and a chance to chat at length to the movers and shakers of the industry. It was an informative couple of days where I conducted many interview, moderated panels, and made guest appearances on The EMS (Eric Miscoll Show) and Mike Konrad’s podcast Reliability Matters, which he recorded live in the SCOOPstudio. Sharing control of a panel with Eric is one thing, but handing the microphone, and control of the conversation, over to Mike Konrad was quite another. Mike is a great interviewer and I am a fan of his work; I just hope I was a decent guest for his informative chat-show-style podcast.
The week ended with two great visits in Silicon Valley, the first with a software company and then lunch with one of my favorite industry journalists. Anyway, in that time, what did we spot in the media?
- I am becoming a big fan of Forbes contributor, Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, Founder and CEO of Instrumental. Check out here “Blueprint For Industry 4.0: What Manufacturers Must Do Today”
- Also in Forbes comes the news that “Boeing is to Strengthen Engineers’ Powers in Response to 737 MAX Crisis”. Boeing’s board has formed a new safety committee and drawn up a blueprint to strengthen the independence of its engineers and safety certification representatives from commercial pressures, in response to two deadly crashes of its flagship 737 MAX airplane.
- Kudos to Mike Buetow for getting a commentary on the SMTAIi keynote online so quickly. His work is always a pleasure to read. Keynote, Mentor Teams Tackle Challenges Big and Small at SMTAI.
- According to IndustryWeek, “Industrial-Digital Players Are in a Sweet Spot”. They are a force of engineering and can quickly mobilize some of the most diverse and talented engineers in the world to solve customer problems.
- Check out the impressive agenda for next week’s i4.0 Connect Forum Event in Silicon Valley, with speakers from Siemens, IBM, Uber AI, Tempo Automation, Koh Young and many more. If I wasn’t so keen to get home, I’d love to have been there myself!
VIDEO OF THE WEEK: No apologies for this one. Here’s my interview for EMSNOW with Ivan Romo, CEO of SMarTsol and a big contributor and supporter of SMTA and a real authority on what’s happening in Mexico.
Don’t forget to check out all the videos from SMTAi on our youtube channel and on EMSNOW in the coming weeks…
That’s it until next week! For more regular musing connect or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Read more, watch more, hear more, know more – that’s the SCOOP!
